September 2020 • Volume 22, Number 5
What’s in your soup?: 3 Let us pray: 8 So, why did God make us?: 10 Dropping the F-bomb: 14
The Message this month: Contents:
Contributors:
Christ Church Staff: The Rev. Patrick Gahan, Rector
From Our Rector ..............................3
The Rev. Scott Kitayama, Associate Rector
Music Ministry ................................7 Youth Ministry .................................8
The Rev. Brien Koehler, Associate Rector for Mission and Formation
Family Ministry .............................10
The Rev. Justin Lindstrom, Associate Rector for Community Formation
Church Life ....................................11
PATRICK GAHAN
Carol Miller, Pastoral Care Administrator Halleta Heinrich, Director of Family Ministry
Kitchen Ministry.............................12
Lily Fenton, Nursery Director
Page Turners...................................13
Amy Case, Youth Minister
Great Commission...........................14
JOSH BENNINGER
Susan Lindstrom, Director of College Ministry
Photo Album...................................15
Joshua Benninger, Music Minister & Organist
Cover photos: Gretchen Duggan
Jennifer Holloway, Assistant Music Director & Director of Children’s Music
Editor: Gretchen Duggan
Charissa Fenton, Receptionist AMY CASE
Robert Hanley, Director of Campus Operations
Live Stream Services:
Darla Nelson, Office Manager
www.cecsa.org/live-stream or www.facebook.com/ChristChurchSATX/live
Donna Franco, Financial Manager Gretchen Comuzzi Duggan, Director of Communications
music begins 15 minutes before the service
9:00 & 11:00 a.m. Sundays
HALLETA HEINRICH
9:30 a.m. Wednesdays
Elizabeth Martinez, Kitchen Manager Robert Vallejo, Facilities Manager
Current Services: Sunday 9:00 & 11 a.m. on the lawn Holy Eucharist, Rite II
Monica Elliott, Executive Assistant to the Rector
Rudy Segovia, Hospitality Manager Joe Garcia, Sexton
JUSTIN LINDSTROM
Sunday School 10:10 a.m. outside on the grounds
2020 Vestry:
Christian Education, Small groups and Bible studies for Children, Youth, and Adults are offered in person on Sunday and via Zoom
Darrell Jones, Senior Warden ELIZABETH MARTINEZ
Barbara Black, Junior Warden Andy Anderson
Sudie Holshouser
Lisa Blonkvist
Andy Kerr
Catherine de Marigny David McArthur
Visit us on-line at www.cecsa.org 2
FERNE BURNEY
Meagan Desbrow
Margaret Pape
Tobin Hays
Robert Rogers
What Do We Need to Know? by Patrick Gahan
Soup is a staple in our home. Kay will
conduct an in-depth inventory of the fridge, contemplate the diverse pickings, and within minutes her epicurean light comes on. Reaching into the refrigerator, she retrieves a leg and two thighs of leftover chicken hidden away in tin foil, a couple of carrots, three heads of overlooked broccoli, two stalks of drooping celery, and grabs the over-ripe tomatoes languishing beside the sink. Next, she pulls out ancient sepia recipe cards, which appear to have been excavated from her grandmother’s crypt. Chopping, boiling, seasoning, and stirring ensues. By six o’clock something Moroccan, Thai, Polish, Indian, or Cajun is placed on the table. Kay knows how to create a masterpiece from the unexceptional. She loves creating and what joy her concoctions bring to us. A vision of her happily scurrying about our kitchen came to mind when my friend Richard Albanese told me a parable, entitled The Soup of the Soup of the Soup:
Ahmad made a brilliant soup on Sunday using very fresh lamb meat and vegetables. He made quite a lot, so his family and several neighbors were able to have it. At the end of the meal there was some soup left so Ahmad added water in preparation for the next day. His family and some neighbors enjoyed the soup on Monday. He added water Monday night and the serving was replayed on Tuesday and finally on Wednesday. A neighbor on Wednesday said to Ahmad this soup is very weak. Ahmad said, “Yes, of course, this is the soup of the soup of the soup.” Ahmad, in my mind’s eye, became Kay. I can see her moving about the kitchen making far more soup than the two of us can eat, and how it delights her when family, a friend or another nurse at work enjoys her creation. Ahmad and Kay create gifts out of love for others. Ahmad’s parable, however, ends with a warning. Once the soup is diluted, the original gift of love is obscured. The soup of the soup of the soup bears little resemblance to the gift the cook had in mind. I envision Kay, in a huff, pouring the weakened, adulterated concoction down the disposal.
As Christians, we may catch an echo of Jesus in the parable. I can almost hear Jesus saying to a crowd along the lakeshore, ‘The kingdom of God is like a soup a man prepared for his neighbors…’ The crowd would sit on the sand and rocks spellbound by Jesus’ understanding of their rudimentary lives in the village. And yet, like all of Jesus’ parables, a healthy serving of this one would eventually lead them beyond the routine to a deeper understanding of God and His purpose for their lives. On that score, Ahmad’s story strikes me much like Jesus’ succinct parable offered at the Sermon on the Mount, ‘You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt has lost its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out…’ (Matthew 5:13). Jesus could have easily added, ‘You are the soup of the world, but if the soup is diluted, it is no longer good enough to serve but should be poured into the sewer.’ Ahmad’s parable insists that God made us for more than mere existence. He made us to add flavor to an ofttimes bland, insipid world. However, if our witness to God’s love has become weak and tasteless, we are no longer a gift that fills others with joy and hope and can be discarded like 3
From Our Rector... yesterday’s newspaper.
said, “Okay, I’ve tried everything else, so I better go down there myself.” 200,000 years with homo sapiens and God finally figures out how to throw us a lifejacket? Jesus doesn’t tell the story that way. He insists, ‘When I am lifted up, I will draw all people to me’ (John 12:32). His death and resurrection are meant to draw us to God, in order that we come to know His intimate, unrestrained love for us.
hearts. Recall the Samaritan woman Jesus encounters at the well. Little by little, he Can we be certain that our mundane, strips away her resistance and reveals unexceptional lives can be a gift from himself to her. ‘Woman, if you only knew God? According to the Bible, God knew the gift of God who is standing in front of you’ what he was going to make of us before (John 4:10). When she meets Jesus, she is the time we were formed. The Psalmist isolated and burdened by her profligate confesses, ‘You created my inmost being; You knit history. Overcome by his loving attention, me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you for the woman leaves her water jar at the I am fearfully and wonderfully made’ (Psalm well and races into the village, which, 139:13-14). We’re quite a soup, I’d say. of all places, is where she has long been God has always known the distained and ostracized. Now woman or man we were unashamed, she announces to Ahmad’s parable insists that God made us for more than all, ‘Come see a man who knew all to become. No human being is unintended by about the things I did, who knows me mere existence. He made us to add flavor to an oft times God. We are “fearfully and inside and out. Do you think this could bland, insipid world. However, if our witness to God’s love wonderfully made,” no be the Messiah?’ And all the villagers has become weak and tasteless, we are no longer a gift matter our limitations or went out to see for themselves (John the circumstances of our 4:28-30 Message). Jesus loves that fills others with joy and hope... conception. the woman with the intimacy she has been seeking elsewhere We are not the objects of a last-ditch Interestingly enough, “knowing” and in the procession of five husbands and a rescue mission. No, we are the objects “conception” are paired in the Biblical live-in paramour, and his love drives her of God’s relentless courtship. Surely, witness. When the prophet Amos cries towards others. How telling it is that when the long procession of Old Testament out God’s impassioned plea to Israel, ‘You Jesus’ male disciples see all this unfolding, stories verifies this claim. As any husband, only have I known of all the families of the all they can do is talk about lunch. ‘Open wife, parent, or child knows, only love earth…’ (Amos 3:2), the Hebrew word for your eyes,’ commands Jesus in exasperation. transforms. Fear of retribution is a “know” is yâda. This is the same word we ‘These Samaritan fields are ripe. It’s harvest temporary fix at best, but love can make find in Genesis 4:1, where Adam and time’ (4:35). But it’s only lunchtime for the something out of nothing. We are drawn Eve make conjugal love: ‘Adam knew his disciples. They do not yet know Christ’s into the embrace of the One who loves wife, and she conceived and bore a son, Cain.’ love and, thus, do not understand the us, much like a spouse is drawn into the While it’s true that God knows every inch woman’s ecstatic response to it. arms of his or her beloved or a child onto of us such that even the hairs of our head are the lap of a parent. We learn love from numbered (Matthew 10:30; Luke 12:7), it Sadly, most of us, both male and female, those who love us. The imprint of Kay’s is truer still that He knows us intimately as have arrested development like the love on my life is undeniable, and when the object of His love. This is why some disciples. We know about God, but we my grandchildren run into my arms, I am individuals are stirred beyond words when have not let our guard down to experience they first hear about Jesus Christ’s sacrifice learning as much love as I’m giving. St. His love and thereby come to know Him John uses few words in describing where for them on the cross. Love in our world intimately. Our “personal relationship and how this spiritual phenomenon begins, with Jesus Christ” is rendered as a banking is meted out sparingly and only within ‘We love because God first loved us’ (1 John well-defined circles of relationships. To transaction that took place at such and 4:19). The entire Biblical record can be know that the God of the universe loves such a place on such and such a day, which summed up with “God loves, we can’t stop we recount like the information on an us with overflowing sacrificial devotion Him, and He invites us to join Him in His is altogether disarming. Such knowledge ATM printout. “Christ made my deposit. love mission.” will transform the course of a person’s I’m now in the black.” We wouldn’t entire life, leading us to love beyond the describe our human relationships in that Therefore, God saves us, not primarily formidable boundaries of kin and clan. way. Without really knowing God, our because we are stewing in a cauldron of relationship with him is reduced to debits sin, but because He loves us. Love always The transformational power of Christ’s and credits on a divine ledger. seeks an object, and when it finds one, the crucifixion and resurrection can recipe of that love is written on the heart make unexceptional individuals into On this account, I am haunted by an of the one who receives it. When we come admission by Carl Jung (1875-1961), masterpieces. Unfortunately, we have to know that love, we will love others and narrowed Jesus Christ’s passion into a the great Swiss psychoanalyst, who extend the kind of joy into our corner of desperate rescue mission by the Almighty, bequeathed to us an understanding of as if God came to the end of His rope and the world that’s been imprinted on our “Archetype,” “Collective Unconscious,” 4
From Our Rector... “Shadow Side,” and “Extroversion and Introversion.” Five generations of Swiss Reformed pastors preceded him, ending with his own father. Jung’s lamentable assessment of them was that they were – all of them – unhealthy and unhappy.1 What a frightening appraisal of men who gave their entire lives to the ordained ministry and yet exuded no joy or peace that would incite others toward the love of God. There is an urgency in coming to know God, for to come to know Him is never merely for our own sake. We do so for others, as well, lest we leave them with no joy, little hope, and bereft of love. Seeing that it is so urgent, how do we come to know God? Is there a secret rite, a formula, an incantation one can throw up like a Hail Mary? Hardly. We come to know God on the journey on which God Himself sets us. We are all on this sacred journey, whether we are just stepping out of college into adulthood, at midlife shepherding our family, or rounding the bend of our last decades on earth. The problem, of course, is that we so often march along in a fog of our own conjuring, insistent we have made our own way, stumbling along in the delusion that we are self-made women and men. All the while, the very path we’re on was envisaged by God before we even made our earthly debut. St. Paul, arguing with a group of sanguine, self-assured men in Athens, tried to break through the brick wall of their egotism on this very subject: ‘From one man God made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek Him and perhaps reach out and find Him, though He is not far from any of us. For in Him, we live and move and have our being.’ Acts 17:26-28 We are on a God-directed journey; though it may seem that we have undertaken endless detours. The side streets, setbacks, 1 Richard Rohr, The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope For, and Believe (New York: Convergent, 2019),84. Rohr’s book, which will in all likelihood be his last, has greatly inspired my writing of this essay.
and dead ends all matter significantly because the goal of the journey is not some grand arrival but to come, step-bystep, to know God who already knows us from the inside. St. Paul, writing amidst the most painful leg of his own 10,000mile passage, challenged another group of supercilious Greeks with, ‘Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you…?’ (2 Corinthians 13:5) Ask any child “where Jesus is,” and they will point to their chest, signifying that Christ is in their heart. With adulthood and our amassed bulwark of sophistication, we barricade ourselves from these childish notions, only to realize we have to relearn that bedrock truth. Christ, God incarnate, makes his home within us. To this, Richard Rohr, the Franciscan priest and prolific author soundly concludes, “God must reveal Himself in you before God can reveal Himself to you.”2
We come to know God on the journey on which God Himself sets us. We are all on this sacred journey, whether we are just stepping out of college into
adulthood, at mid-life shepherding
our family, or rounding the bend of our last decades on earth.
At “heart” we know this is true. Even the erudite, urbane Augustine swore we have a God-shaped hole within us. Hearing the children sing across the garden wall in Milan, he discovered the hole he perceived in his heart had actually never been vacant. God was the ache within him, which led him to hear the repeated lyrics of the song playfully caroled by children unseen and unknown by him. “Take up and read,” they repeatedly sang. Augustine picked up Paul’s Letter to the Romans and read words that God had already spoken directly into his heart. 2 Rohr, 42.
Augustine realized to know God is to know that He, the One who created us, has taken up residence within us. That is why Jacob is the most popular personality in Genesis. We may argue that his grandfather Abraham is the most important and Joseph the most colorful, but Jacob is surely the one with whom we most identify. Like Augustine, like us, Jacob tries running from God only to find God never left him, but only God knows why, for Jacob was an “oily” low life, to be blunt. Conniving with his mother to cheat his own brother out of his inheritance, he emerges from the ancient story as a whitecollar criminal, with clean fingernails and buttery speech. Hanging close to the tents with his mother Rebekah, he schemes to disgrace his father Isaac and humiliate his brother Esau. He pulls off the scam but gets no satisfaction from his grifting because Esau, now enraged, is determined to break Jacob’s pencil neck. As night falls, he is running for his life and for the first time separated from home and his mother. He falls down exhausted with only a rock for a pillow. He dreams of a ladder connecting heaven and earth, and when he awakens, he exclaims, ‘Surely God is in this place and I did not know it’ (Genesis 28:16). At first, Jacob imagines the place, Bethel, is enchanted, such that he promises to later build a shrine there. But it’s not the place or the rock or the season of the year that’s inhabited by God any more than a chalice, a church, or Lent is in some greater measure possessed by the Lord. Jacob is the one indwelled by the Almighty, just as you and I are mobile tabernacles of the Holy One, as we, like Israel in the wilderness, traverse the secular landscape. God reveals Himself in Jacob, and he is able to press on with his journey, find a wife – actually two – and begin a life apart from his mother and the twisted enterprises he had relied on before. Conversion pulls out our false props and pacifying securities as soon as we realize that we are occupied territory, claimed by God and saved by Christ. Jesus emphasizes this fact to the disciples at the last supper, ‘“Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them’ (John 14:23). 5
From our Rector... Rohr’s pithy saying is correct: Once God reveals Himself in us, he can reveal Himself to us, and the great adventure ensues. Jacob’s interior discovery of God’s presence occurs at Bethel, setting the stage for God to reveal Himself to Jacob on the bank of the River Jabbok. Fourteen years have passed since he fled from his brother and had his dream upon a stone pillow. Now he is only days from encountering Esau again. He fears for his life but fears even more for the lives of his expansive family. Jacob sends the caravan across the river without him. Alone with his dread, God comes to him in the guise of a man or an angel. The two wrestle on the riverbank all through the night. At daybreak, the two make a truce yet not before Jacob is renamed “Israel” and his hip is painfully dislocated. Jacob, the self-possessed, snot-nosed, selfish one, who had created a universe of one, was now poised to be the father of God’s chosen people. His cockiness is replaced with a limp, a lifelong reminder of his encounter with God. He crosses the river into a new future. He is humbled but changed. Better to limp than to strut. Jacob fascinates Christians because we understand our own journey with Christ through him. The glory we imagined when we began our walk has been replaced with humility. ‘Have this mindset that was in Christ,’ says St. Paul, ‘though he was God on earth, he humbled himself…’ (Philippians 2:8). Our humility is kindled within us much like it enflamed our great uncle Jacob. Our fantasy of self-possession is consumed in the fire of God’s possession of us. We realize every atom of our selves is Spirit breathed and the steps – even our calamitous missteps – have been accompanied by the One who made us. Rohr interprets this revolutionary understanding that was ceded to Paul” Very important, and an utterly new idea from Paul was that the Gospel was not about following some criteria outside of the human person—which he calls ‘the law,’ but the locus of authority had changed to inside the human person. This is why he rails against law so strongly in both Romans and Galatians. The real and ‘new’ law 6
is an actual participation with Someone inside of us; ‘the love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5 and throughout). This Inner Authority, the personal moral compass, will guide us more than any outer pressure or law, he believes, and it is available to everyone.3 Returning to Jung’s language, if Jacob is our archetype of discovery and journey, then Mary is our archetype of receptivity and grace. Think about it. Mary receives Christ – not in her head – but in her body. She humbly receives the Lord into herself. ‘Let it be to me as you have spoken,’ she responds to the angel Gabriel (Luke 1:38). And yet, after carrying Christ in her womb, giving birth to him, and raising him into adulthood – she then gives him away. ‘A sword shall pierce your heart,’ declares Simeon to her at the infant Jesus’ dedication in the Temple (Luke 2:35). Mary, who receives Christ into her very body, gives him away for the life of the world.
The love we have received from Christ, we give away, lest it become diluted and altogether tasteless.
Receiving him, loving him, she gives him away. Mary’s life is our script for a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, the verifiable evidence of conversion. Neither a balanced ledger opened on St. Peter’s desktop nor a Not-Guilty verdict announced in the cosmic courtroom, approach the gravity and power of receiving, loving, and giving. Michelangelo’s Pietà tells the story. Mary receives the broken, bloody body of the Son, her son, into her arms. The devotion and the pain are both chiseled across her face. Christ’s love consumed Mary in a conflagration that stoked within her the courage to give him away to us at so great a cost. Some say the physician Luke interviewed Mary in order to write his Gospel account. If so, I wonder if she’s the one who repeated her son’s piercing words, ‘Whoever tries to keep their life will lose 3 Rohr, 199.
it, and whoever loses their life will preserve it’ (Luke 17:33). The love we have received from Christ, we give away, lest it become diluted and altogether tasteless. At times, we Christians are shocked, if not incensed, when we experience painful reversals in our lives or endure long seasons of loss. Yet, receiving the crucified One into our lives, should we not expect to share the pain of his mother? ‘I have been crucified with Christ,’ announces Paul in his very first letter (Galatians 2:20). The great evangelist is being patently honest. To be in Christ is a lifelong embodied experience with the One who ascended the cross at Calvary; therefore, expansive joy as well as stabbing pain will accompany our journey. ‘A sword shall pierce your heart also.’ Those of us who come to know Christ and love him all walk with a decided limp. I have a friend who is limping. After a brief reprieve, cancer is, again, assaulting his body. The prognosis is not good, and he knows it. Rather than bemoan his demise, he invited me to take a long walk with him and talk about the joys we share – our wives, our families, our faith, our churches, our country. We saunter along, one of us in his mid-sixties, the other in his mid-seventies. Another One walks between us so that we get right to the heart of things, sharing our love with one another. This is no time for soup of the soup of the soup.
Pietà, Michelangelo Buonarroti, 1498-99, St Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City
Who is Barry Brake? Music Ministry by Josh Benninger
The Holy Spirit called Barry Brake to
the front steps of Christ Church––at least, that’s what I’m sticking with. The journey to seek Bob Shoaf ’s replacement was rife with gnashing of teeth until I received Barry’s inquiry. His email arrived not a moment too soon, because I thought The Second Coming would be upon us before I found an artist endowed with Bob’s spirit-filled level of musicality. Bob was irreplaceable, but my fears of a diminished music ministry were dashed as I witnessed Barry’s fingers dance across the keyboard. Barry Brake grew up at Trinity Baptist Church, where his grandparents were charter members. He was involved in the church choirs, ensembles, and youth group. At age 14, his professional music career began when he started playing piano at the Gunter Hotel. He would go on to earn a Composition degree from Baylor University, followed by a Master’s in English literature from UTSA. As an adult at Trinity Baptist, Barry led worship for the Sunday night worship and Bible study, taught 10th and 11th grade Sunday school, and served on the Board of Deacons. Throughout, he has pursued a commitment to knowing Christ, making Him known, and modeling spiritual
exploration, Biblical knowledge, and Christian behavior. Barry playing at Christ Church is like a homecoming, since he was previously a member of the contemporary worship team from 2004-2006. He has also played and led worship at Christ Church in the Hill Country, St Margaret’s, Holy Trinity Anglican, Grace Fellowship, and Fellowship of the Way of Christ. He served for the past six years as the Contemporary Service Music Director for St Thomas Episcopal Church. He also served on the national panel of twelve writers for Student Life Ministries, one of the world’s largest youth ministry resources, for its study series entitled “Consecration,” taught in over four thousand churches worldwide. Outside the Church, Barry is a freelance composer, arranger, performer, and producer of music, with numerous film soundtracks, stage shows, commercials, and CDs to his name. The San Antonio Current describes him as a “respected pianist – composer” whose music “captivates us all.” He’s a co-founder of the San Antonio trio the Jazz Protagonists. His clients include the San Antonio Symphony, Texas MedClinic, Carlsberg Beer, Subaru, Jeep, Sea World, KFC, and the Wall Street Journal. In addition to his command of the keyboard, Barry is a sought-after audio engineer and sound consultant, with clients including the Four Freshmen, the
HEB Foundation, and the upcoming 2022 restoration of New York City’s historic St James Church. He is also a bandleader and booking agent for events in San Antonio and all over the state. For over thirty years he has put together musical entertainment for hundreds of weddings, parties, dances, and concerts, for groups such as the Lamplighters, the Revelers, and dozens of corporate clients. If you listen to public radio, you may have had the privilege of listening to Barry. He is a 25-year radio veteran, and current classical music host of Texas Public Radio’s “Classical Connections,” which reaches 130,000 listeners every week. On the show he conducts interviews with local musicians, stars, directors, and composers, often with live on-air performances. Barry currently serves on the Advisory Board of Great Hearts Monte Vista South, where his daughters Greta (10) and Clara (7) go to school. The girls are interested in music, each in their own way, as well as crafts, glitter, gymnastics, and sandwiches. His wife of 16 years, Catherine, is a homemaker and lifelong Christian of deep faith. I encourage you, whether in person or live stream, to tune in early to the worship services to experience Barry’s playing. My hope is that you enjoy his music, and realize he is a man of faith who continually seeks a growing relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ. 7
Prayers for
Youth Ministry by Amy Case Dear Christ Church Families,
By the time you receive this magazine, school in whatever form it takes, has been in session for several weeks. Some of our kids are back to school in person, some remotely, but for all, this school year is very different. I came across these Back to School prayers by Traci Smith, written especially for use during these uncertain times, and found them extremely helpful. Prayer is a conversation with God, and these prayers can help kids begin the dialogue. Blessings, Amy Case & Avery Moran, Youth Ministers A Prayer for Back to School At the start of the school year, we are beginning something new New things can be exciting New things can be scary New things can be wonderful New things can be confusing God, you are always with us You are with us when things are exciting, or scary, or wonderful, or confusing You are with us every day And all the time God, please help us to feel your presence with us on the first day of school, and every day, Amen
A Prayer for Blended Learning I can learn in many different ways I can learn at home I can learn at school I can learn in both home and school This year I’ll be learning in many different places Though my body will be in different places, one thing will always stay the same: No matter where I am, God is with me No matter where I am, God loves me No matter where I am, I am God’s child Amen
A Prayer in the Time of COVID-19 God, we have so many things to pray for: We pray for those who are sick We pray for those who are worried about getting sick We pray for doctors, and nurses, and medical professionals We pray for those who are sad and grieving someone who has died We pray for scientists We pray for politicians We pray for our family We pray for our friends We pray for all the other things in our hearts and on our minds We end our prayer by saying “thank you,” God Thank you for the small blessings of every day Thank you for hearing us when we pray Thank you for your love Amen.
A Prayer for Putting on a Mask I put on my mask to show others I care I put on my mask to keep others safe I put on my mask to love my neighbor Thank you, God, for being with me Amen
A Prayer for At Home (Remote) Learning Home is where we eat at the table and sleep in our bed For now, home is where we do our learning, too God, please be with me when I learn at home Help me to understand what to do Help me to be patient if it gets hard or feels too different Most of all, help me to feel your love, Amen 8
A Prayer for Homeschooling As I start a year of school at home, I pray for all of the things I will learn this year. I pray for my teachers and family members. (Sometimes my teachers are my family members!) Help us all on this journey. May we be kind and do our very best, Amen.
A Prayer for Washing My Hands I wash my hands I make them clean I dry them off While I wash I say “Thank you, God” While I wash I say “Peace to all” Amen.
A Prayer for Healers God, we pray for those who heal, in mind and body and spirit As they care for others, may you care for them As they bring healing to others, may you keep them safe Thank you for those who have a special calling to heal others May they always be well May they always have peace
Back to School A Prayer for Living Day by Day When our world is changing day by day, sometimes we worry about the future Sometimes our plans change Sometimes we don’t know what will happen later Sometimes we are disappointed God, please be near to us when we are disappointed, or worried, or in a time of change Help us to live day by day, and to be thankful for what each day brings Help us not to worry about tomorrow This is the day that you have made, God, let us be present and joyful today
A Prayer for When I’m Out of My Routine Some days are topsy turvy Some days are not what I was expecting On those days I stop I breathe in I breathe out I take a break and feel the Holy Spirit guide me A Blessing for the School Space Inside the Home God we dedicate this space as a space for learning May our minds be quieted in this space May we be open to learning in this space May we be curious in this space Be with us each and every moment we come to our special learning place Amen
A Prayer for Scientists and Other Leaders God, we thank you for those who are working hard to solve the problems we face. May you be with scientists and other leaders as they make discoveries about COVID19 and the world we live in. May they be brave. May they know that their work is important. May they never give up. Amen.
A Prayer for When I’m Tired and Overwhelmed When I’m tired I need rest for my body And for my mind and spirit, too God, please show me how to rest and space Help me to find peace for my spirit Peace for my mind Peace for my body Thank you for my breath Thank you for my family Thank you for your Spirit Amen Back to School Prayers and Blessings www.traci-smith.com © Traci Smith 2020, all rights reserved
A Blessing to Start the Day May your day be filled with joy and gladness May you be kind today May you be at peace today May you know you are loved today, by God and by your family May you hold that love in your heart, today and every day A Blessing to End the Day Goodnight, sweet dreams, the day is done Goodnight, have peace, and know God’s love
Back to School drive through blessing 9
Back to the Basics:
Why did God make us? What is all this for? CEC Family Ministry by Halleta Heinrich
A positive result of our current pandemic situation is that it provides the time to look at all we’ve collected over the years – papers and memories. I had time recently to straighten out the top shelf of my closet and found a treasure – a paper written twenty-two years ago on the great ancient Christian hymn recorded in Paul’s first letter to the Colossians. I was really proud of that paper! I had received an “A” from a very tough professor of Biblical Hermeneutics. I’m sure that’s why I had kept it, even though I had forgotten where I had put it.
from Colossians to my life I am reminded of a question I once asked to a pastor making a visit to our home, “Why did God make us, what is all this for?” This pastor was a brave man who told my husband and me we could ask whatever we wanted. This seemed to be such a simple question, but in its primal simplicity went to the root of the mystery of all creation. This mystery is answered beautifully in Colossians 1:15 – 23.
In the Colossians passage I can see a God who loved his children so much that even when they had betrayed him, he had a plan to bring them back to the perfect creation and all giving love he had intended them for. He knew that he would have to go down into his fallen creation in a form we could see, touch, and understand. He would become Christ – fully human and fully divine and become the perfect sacrifice of pure power and love that it took to save all of us. He would not only save us but all of creation would be saved through this offering of himself.
My favorite part of the paper is the concluding application of these verses from Colossians 1:15 – 20 to my life. I think you can apply it to your lives also. I share with you these verses and my personal application: Who Is Jesus? – The Supremacy of Christ He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. Application When applying this important passage 10
answer. In our further discussion it was brought forward that this God of creation had so much love and creative energy that he could not keep it to himself. He had to share his creation and love with objects of his love – his own children. Here was a God I could understand – a loving God who wanted to give of himself in love, a perfect parent. I had an idea, however small, of a parent’s love as a mother of two precious sons.
When I asked this seemingly simple question, we had recently moved to a new town where I knew no one. My whole identity was in question even though I was a young mom with two boys – an infant and a preschooler. I was a Christian, but I was reaching out for deeper explanations for my faith. This question seemed vital.
We joined the pastor’s church, and my infant son was baptized there. My preschool son sang in the children’s choir. This church was a gift to us for the two years we lived in this town. We moved back home after two years and shortly thereafter my oldest son, of seven years by this time, became suddenly ill and died. The rest of this passage took on a new meaning in light of this lifeshattering occurrence. Christ as the first born among the dead through the power of resurrection meant my little boy was alive in Him – resurrected into the perfect creation our loving God had always wanted to share with his earthly children. God was holding all together even though my life seemed to be blown apart.
The elderly pastor pondered a moment and answered, “Because he wanted children!” I was so pleased with his
God became the head of my body through the indwelling of his Holy Spirit. He directed me to continue and persevere
Halleta with Joshua and Zachary
Family Ministry Continued... in a life that I did not even want to live and set me on a path in ministry to children. Christ was the life within me, and I was a member of his body helping to carry on his plan for salvation.
children’s choir in that other town. His voice was loudest as if wishing to implant the memory in me so I would never forget its message:
I am persevering in my faith as Paul urges, pressing toward the goal as I am called forward by the hope of glory. All is being reconciled through the loving oblation of Christ – even the death of my son. I remember the words to the song my small son sang while a member of the
Oh, how God loves you and me. Oh, how God loves you and me. He gave his life – What more could he give? Oh, how God loves you. Oh, how God loves me. Oh, how God loves you and me.
I had never heard this song before. It is now one of my favorites that I sing with the children in Chapel often. It has been a gift to me and a reminder of the power and grace of our God who would give his very life for us, his beloved children, and my precious son. This kind of love is the essence of our Lord Christ as described in Colossians 1:15 – 23. – All-Supreme, AllSufficient, and All-Loving.
Update on Outreach Through your continued generosity of gifts of food, time, and monetary resources we have been able to meet the high demand of need in our community during this time. Here is a list of what we have been doing:
Food Pantry and Sidewalk Saturday From March 1 to August 1 nearly $75,000 has been donated to Sidewalk Saturday and the Food Pantry Over 1000 CAM bags have been put together and donated Food comes in every week from the parish From April to mid-August, 2,236 households have been served, which is over 5500 people, averaging 112 households per week and 280 people per week
School Ministry Pop-Up Food Bank Distribution at James Madison - 233 households, 855 people, 33 volunteers - each household received about 100 lbs of food School Supplies for about 100 students went to James Madison School The Outreach Committee also sent fund nearing $5,000 to other partners for school supplies and school uniforms
Outreach Committee Over $85,000 has gone out into the community through our partner ministries such as Good Samaritan Center, San Antonio Metropolitan Ministries, Respite Care of San Antonio, Christian Assistance Ministries, Alpha Home, Magdalena House and more These funds have supported specific needs and COVID-19 responses of the ministries
Beyond San Antonio $4,000 was sent to Navajoland for COVID Food Relief
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From the Kitchen Ministry by Elizabeth Martinez “Then Jesus said to his host . . . When you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.” Luke 14:14
During the corona virus shutdown, the
kitchen has been quite busy preparing food for those in need. Kitchen manager Elizabeth Martinez, her assistant Greg Martinez, and volunteer Mariel Rodgers have quietly been preparing breakfast tacos for Sidewalk Saturday families every Saturday (except for the month of July) with the help of others in our parish. No pandemic can keep us down for too long, for the need to feed families who are without jobs, without food, without caring hands to reach out to them is too great. Justin Lindstrom and the Outreach volunteers have done an amazing job
The generous will themselves be blessed, for they share their food with the poor. Proverbs 22:9 Elizabeth Martinez took advantage of the shut-down to schedule the annual cleaning of the kitchen and replacing coffee machines. Maxwell House coffee has discontinued its line of the concentrated liquid coffee. The kitchen will now offer coffee from DeCoty coffee. DeCoty has guaranteed a fresh selection of delicious coffees. Once the church is open to receive our parishioners, please stop by the
kitchen for a fresh, hot cup of coffee. A fresh brew coffee machine will be added in the pavilion as well as the coffee area upstairs in the administrative building, and a new liquid concentrate coffee machine will be added to the kitchen coffee area. The kitchen ministry is ready to serve once Christ Church opens its doors. Worship the Lord your God, and his blessing will be on your food and water. I will take away sickness from among you. Exodus 23:25 Christ Church is due for a new recipe book! If you have a favorite recipe you would like to share, please email it to Elizabeth Martinez at elizabethm@cecsa. org. We hope to have a new cookbook in the fall of 2021. So, send in your recipes! For now, enjoy Carol Miller’s favorite dish from the Christ Church Kitchen - Beef a la Deutsch.
Christ Church Recipes: Beef a la Deutsch (serves 6) 1 lb. ground beef 1 8-oz can tomato sauce 1 clove garlic, crushed 2 teaspoon salt pepper to taste 2 teaspoon sugar 1 16-oz can tomato, undrained 1 5-oz egg noodles, cooked, drained 1 cup sour cream 1 3-oz cream cheese (room temp) 6 green onions, chopped 1 ½ cups grated Cheddar cheese 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
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preparing a safe and clean environment to serve those in need. Humble servants have very graciously donated items for breakfast tacos for Sidewalk Saturday. We would like to thank Van Archer for his donation of fresh eggs and Mike Kiolbassa for the wonderful chorizo sausage and bacon. Thanks goes out to sexton Robert Vallejo who drives to the Kiolbassa plant to pick up the donated orders.
Brown meat; drain excess drippings. Add tomato sauce, garlic, salt, pepper, sugar, and tomatoes. Simmer, covered, over low heat for 45 minutes. Combine hot noodles with cubed cream cheese and stir to melt cheese; add sour cream and green onions. Layer meat, noodle mixture, and Cheddar cheese alternately in an oiled casserole dish. Bake uncovered at 350 for 35 minutes. Flavor improves when reheated.
PAGE TURNERS – From the Rector’s Book Stack C. Christopher
Smith in his book Reading for the Common Good: How Books Help Our Churches and Neighborhoods Flourish, makes it clear that he is distrustful of kneejerk change. Real change that leads to ensuring action in our churches, comes through a growing consensus within the congregation. On this accord, preaching, Sunday announcements, E-News blurbs, and Message articles will just take the parish so far. Shared experience draws the membership together towards a common goal, yet very often groundwork is needed before striking out to accomplish good works inside and outside of the church. To this, Smith contends that “reading together can drive a fellowship into deeper action.” Don’t be misled, however; Smith does not envision some panacea, where all members of the parish settle into a discipline of reading a prescribed book. In fact, Smith, a devoted layperson in his own church in Indianapolis, knows that reading together works best in groups that are already meeting or working together. Over time, the deeper exploration, discussion, and reflection leads a group to understand the more profound Gospel ramifications of their study or work together. For us at Christ Church, Smith makes some solid recommendations: For our Pastoral Care ministers – Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, by Robert Putnam; for Sidewalk Saturday ministers – Gratefulness: The Heart of Prayer, by Benedictine monk David Stendahl-Rast; for our Christian Formation ministers – To Know as We Are Known: A Spirituality of Education, by Parker Palmer; for those in Bible Studies – Eat This Book: A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading, by Eugene Peterson; for those involved in tough issues facing the community – Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in Our Digital Age, by Sherry Turkle; for those who wish to strive for
fairer economics and responsive politics – What Matters? Economics for a Renewed Commonwealth, by Wendell Berry; and for those concerned about the diminishing role of the Church in society – Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony, by Will Willimon and Stanley Hauerwas. Each one of these authors is distinguished in their field, but not one of them offers quick solutions. No, we must settle in, read, converse, and then act together with our hearts set on fire. Conveniently, I had forgotten the hold he had on me, but that was until Helen and Garry Schnelzer sent me a new copy of Out of My Life and Thought, by Albert Schweitzer. In my early thirties, I read everything about Schweitzer I could get my hands on, for he was a towering renaissance Christian, whom I aspired to emulate. This book is a somewhat brief apologia about his life. I had not previously read the details of the revelation he received in young adulthood. In 1896, at the age of twentyone, Schweitzer awoke with a sense of overwhelming gratitude for his life. By that time, he was on the brink of earning two doctorates in philosophy and theology, publishing six books, and being hailed as the greatest organist in all of Europe. He realized his blessings, and in that moment of thanksgiving, he made a covenant with God that he would practice his arts for nine more years, but at age thirty, he would prepare to serve the rest of his days in remote, equatorial Africa. True to his word, Schweitzer set off with his wife, first to study for a medical degree, and then completed the arduous trek to their destination in central Africa by ship, land, and canoe. Their first hospital was set up in a chicken coop, where they served over 2,000 patients in less than nine months. Schweitzer would work all day, seeing scores of terribly ill Bantu and Pygmy patients, and study theology and composition deep into the night. His witness dwarfs me, for when he died at age
90, almost no man on planet earth was more alive. Sunny Fitzsimons would be one of my heroes, even if he had not published an almost poetic personal memoir laced with pressing social criticism for us Texans. He was the first American Bison enthusiast to invite Dr. Wendell Peden and me to a leisurely mid-week luncheon. Wendell, at that time a robust 92-year-old, was enchanted with the conversation from the first syllable. Dr. Andy Anderson and I sat there with the duo as if we were invisible, so entrenched were they in the mating practices of Bison and the water and grass needed to keep them healthy. That was a good day, and Wendell returned to Morningside Manor as enthused and animated as I had ever seen him. After Wendell’s funeral a couple of weeks ago, I found myself missing our weekly chats and reading sessions. To assuage my sadness, I picked up Sunny’s book, which Andy bestowed on Wendell and me to share. I read it without Wendell this time and let Sunny’s words soak into me like a meditation on all that is good with this panoramic land and the mad actions we are taking to destroy it. A Rock Between Two Rivers: Fracturing a Texas Family Ranch, by Hugh Asa “Sunny” Fitzsimons, III is essential reading for any Texan interested in the rich history of the land and the alarming need to preserve its water, vegetation, and critters. Sunny Fitzsimons is a visionary, who has acted on his vision to heal our state and serve as a role model for other states, like Pennsylvania and the Dakotas, which are caught in the same mad, unreflective dash to extract oil and gas from the earth. Unable to stop or even slow the ecological devastation of fracking in Dimmitt County or, for that matter, on the very ranch that his family has inhabited for over a century, he, instead, continued on page
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What’s the new F-bomb in America? FRAUD! Great Commission Society by Ferne Burney
As we enter more information into our
digital world, stalkers and scammers are after us as never before. I have received requests for information on my accounts with Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and USAA; none of which do I have an account. The site looks legitimate, but the people behind them are as phony as they come. A Christ Church parishioner once told me that she is convinced that it is someone’s 24/7 job to try to get her money. Believe it. The most recent scams look as though they are coming from the Center for Disease Control or the World Health Organization. They promise important information concerning the pandemic and contain a link for the reader to click. Others ask for the recipient to verify personal information to receive an economic stimulus check. Fraudsters will use any headline issue to catch your attention and draw you into participating. Keep in mind that any time you share personal information, it should be to a site that YOU have requested, not the other way around. When I receive one of these fraudulent requests from an account I actually do have, I immediately go to the actual site and see if they are truly requesting information from me or sounding an alert for me. They never are. Some things to keep in mind: 14
v The IRS will never communicate with you by email. v Social Security will never communicate with you by email. v Any time you play a trivia quiz on Facebook or other site, you may be revealing information that a scammer can use to hack your security questions. v Keep your passwords random. The cyber-genius who wields a baton at Christ Church advised the choir that our passwords should be more than 12 letters in length and should be three random words…nothing relating to us personally. Excellent advice. v You do not have to answer any question just because someone asked it. It is not rude. In this climate, it is smart. v Smart devices in your homes are always listening. Our financial world has gone digital. It has made banking easier. Our Shelby Next accounts make it a breeze to keep up with the church and to make our tithes in seconds. The trend of sharing information on line will continue to grow, and haven’t we seen that with our medical visits, our board meetings, our church services, our club gatherings all in the electronic world? So, we need to use common sense, and we need to be judicious with what we share. If this is depressing, I want to give you evidence that the world is not as ugly as we might think. I tried to make a payment this week using VENMO (a digital cash exchange program). I typed
in my friend’s name, and it came up right away. I sent her the $85 that was needed for a new door decoration. After sending the payment, I looked more carefully at the image associated with the name. It was a person in an alien mask! I sent a message to my friend, asking if she was in a mask in her photo. She laughed and answered that her image was of her face. My heart sank as I realized that I had just sent the money to a stranger who had either used my friend’s name or had the same name…the mask was not reassuring that this person was on the level. The only way the charges can be reversed with this program is to ask the recipient of the funds for the money back. I considered it a futile effort, but I did it anyway, ensuring that I included “please” in my request. My money was returned within minutes. My faith in humanity was restored. Our church continues to work to build the endowment fund that will ensure our future operational needs. You CAN donate via Shelby Next, or you can notify the clergy of your desire to make a legacy gift. If it is the latter, it needs to be part of the file in the office. Our needs are real and our site is fraud-free.
Photo Album
Book Stack Continued reintroduced American Bison to the area as well as honeybees. The remediation of the land seems nearly unachievable. A total of 15,000 Eagle Ford oil and gas wells have been dug, which have now used 28 billion gallons of fresh water from both Dimmitt and La Salle Counties with the subsequent release of various
herbicides, Benzene, toluene, and xylene into the soil, along with smoking flares that constantly emit a carcinogenic cocktail into the atmosphere. To abate the march of devastation, Sunny was elected to the Wintergarden Groundwater Conservation District, where he has fought, often futilely, to amend these destructive, short-sighted
actions by energy corporations. However, it would be wrong to characterize this book as dour or pessimistic. The book is Sunny’s memoir of love for his family, it’s legacy, and the land on which they have trod.
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E P I S C O PA L Christ Episcopal Church 510 Belknap Place San Antonio, TX 78212 www.cecsa.org
The Message (USPS 471-710) is published bi-monthly by Christ Episcopal Church, 510 Belknap Place, San Antonio, TX 78212. Periodical postage paid in San Antonio, TX. Postmaster: Please send address changes to Christ Episcopal Church, 510 Belknap Place, San Antonio, TX 78212. Volume 22, Number 5.
Sitting in the “splash zone’ during baptism